systems with Armor as DR: thoughts on Defense penalty?

[GlassJaw]

Here's the setup:

You are creating a ruleset for a cinematic, high-action, swashbuckling game.

Each class has a Defense bonus that increases with level advancement.
The Vitality/Wound Point system will be used.
Armor will be treated as DR.

Design Goal: You want to lessen the reliance on armor, or at least make players think twice about wearing very heavy armor.

Option: How do you feel about armor giving a penalty to Defense, perhaps equal to its Armor Check Penalty?

 

[Tarek]

Here's the setup:

You are creating a ruleset for a cinematic, high-action, swashbuckling game.

Each class has a Defense bonus that increases with level advancement.
The Vitality/Wound Point system will be used.
Armor will be treated as DR.

Design Goal: You want to lessen the reliance on armor, or at least make players think twice about wearing very heavy armor.

Option: How do you feel about armor giving a penalty to Defense, perhaps equal to its Armor Check Penalty?

Why not have armor give both a Defense boost and DR, but have the Defense boost overridden by the class bonus to armor?
This allows the use of heavy armor at lower levels, but makes it increasingly unattractive as your PCs hit higher levels. That makes it so that the heavy-armor wearing guys end up being more vulnerable to being knocked around at high levels, which offsets the DR.

In any case, for this kind of thing to work, the DR for armor must be relatively small; 1 point for light, 2 points for medium, 3 points for heavy, or about that scale.

Another thing you can do is simply not give out "enchanted" or "enhanced" heavy armor, assuming that magic exists in your campaign.

Also, point out to your players that armor check and weight penalties are doubled when swimming... and have your campaign visit city analogs of Venice, or have lots of chase scenes over bridges.

 

[Psion]

Sounds fine to me, so long as the penalty is not so severe, it doesn't make sense to wear the armor.

 

[Fenris]

Here's the setup:

You are creating a ruleset for a cinematic, high-action, swashbuckling game.

Each class has a Defense bonus that increases with level advancement.
The Vitality/Wound Point system will be used.
Armor will be treated as DR.

Design Goal: You want to lessen the reliance on armor, or at least make players think twice about wearing very heavy armor.

Option: How do you feel about armor giving a penalty to Defense, perhaps equal to its Armor Check Penalty?

Yeah, you have to balance armor against Defense. Both working together are too much. Now you are talking about a straight armor = DR system? You'll have very tough heroes, even applying the ACP.

Lets assume a standard campaign. Say 5th level. You could have a Fast Hero 5 with a defense of +5, lets say 16 dex for an AC of 18. Add a MW Chain shirt and you hero takes a paltry -1 to AC to pick up DR 4? I don't think you will lessen reliance on armor GJ, you'll increase it.

I think a better was is to cap the defense you can use to the max dex. Especially with armor as straight DR, this might work out better. Your fast hero will still wear armor until the mid levels, but the lightest he can get. Your stronger/slower heroes will have less Defense to sacrifice to wear heavier armor. A Tough Hero 5 with a Defense of 3, can use his enitre Defense using a breastplate, or only loses 1 with MW Banded Mail and gains DR6.

The fast hero will always shed his armor first, but all the heroes will shed armor as they gain levels, although I would expect some to hang on to a small Defense penalty to gain such great DR.

Have you considered Old One's armor provides half AC DR with the max dex limit? Makes for harder choices earlier on. But while it does keep ACs up, it keeps DR down. Thats the "look" hit more often for smaller damage in your system, or hit fewer times for more once you get hit.

I just don't see your design goal being met with the options you present. A low level strong, will get tagged every time, AC of what 12 a best, but if he has 8 DR, what low level threat will get through?

 

[Wik]

I think the OP was more referring to the DR system found in Unearthed Arcana, which, as far as I recall, isn't a flat-out exchange.

I like the iron heroes method of armour - it's DR, but based on a die roll. Which actually winds up being pretty fun. In that game, PCs were not necessarily "encourage" to wear little armour, but it was the nature of the rules (why burn those feats on armour use?) that made most characters wear lighter armours.

 

[migo]

Here's what I was thinking for penalties.

Take Strength.

Set it up something like

1 - 1lbs
2 - 2lbs
3 - 3lbs
4 - 4lbs
5 - 6lbs
6 - 8lbs
7 - 12lbs
8 - 16lbs
9 - 24lbs
10 - 32lbs
11 - 48lbs
12 - 64lbs
13 - 96lbs
14 - 128lbs
etc. I think the progression should be pretty obvious. Adjust it to taste.

For normal sized people, have Strength = base AC and movement rate (in AD&D terms, so since AD&D converted 12 -> 30, you take the number, multiply it by 5 and divide by 2).

Where it gets tricky is you add up your total encumbrance, and subtract it from your encumbrance rating, and look at what you have left and that's your strength.

So if you have strength 14, and you're carrying 100lbs of stuff, that's 128-100 = 28, looking at the table the one under it is 9 at 24lbs. Your effective strength is now 9. That comes with all the requisite penalties, you now get a -1 penalty on attack and damage rolls, etch. Your AC also dropped by 5 points.

Keeps everything nicely in one place and it really discourages encumbering yourself in any way, particularly with heavy armour.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Split AC to 50% DR and 50% Defense Bonus (rounded for DR), allow Defense Bonus to overlap but not stack, and integrate feats that allow the stacking of both (I used Armored Defense (Light), (Medium) and (Heavy) as a feat chain, all with the respective Armor proficiencies as prereqs; maybe use a Base Defense Bonus minimum as prereq as well ). Will allow people to still build heavily armored tanks that actually know how to use all the fancy parry maneuvers in armor, but make it damn hard for the ordinary person to reach, while most people will find it easier to go for lightly armored, nimble fighters that make most of their Dexterity and Dodge feats.

 

[JDJblatherings]

Here's the setup:

You are creating a ruleset for a cinematic, high-action, swashbuckling game.

Each class has a Defense bonus that increases with level advancement.
The Vitality/Wound Point system will be used.
Armor will be treated as DR.

Design Goal: You want to lessen the reliance on armor, or at least make players think twice about wearing very heavy armor.

Option: How do you feel about armor giving a penalty to Defense, perhaps equal to its Armor Check Penalty?

Remove armor proffs as freebies for all classes where they have them, require folks to spend feats on them.

Make armor more expensive, a LOT more expensive. In the real world a fully armroed medieval warriro was an economic impact not unlike a Tank.

armro fell out of use when firearms became popular becasue the cost of effective armor versus fiureams (which did exsist) was even more expensive making them almost totally uselss in economic reality. Much more sensible to arm 200 drafties with muskets then to field a handful of armored elite warriors.

 

[Tarek]

armro fell out of use when firearms became popular becasue the cost of effective armor versus fiureams (which did exsist) was even more expensive making them almost totally uselss in economic reality. Much more sensible to arm 200 drafties with muskets then to field a handful of armored elite warriors.

Actually, it was the increasing use of crossbows that started the decline of full-plate armor, IIRC; reliable firearms came in later and in any case were far more expensive at the time than a good crossbow.

Breastplates that could stand up to a musket shot were still in use for a fairly long time.

 

[Aus_Snow]

How do you feel about armor giving a penalty to Defense, perhaps equal to its Armor Check Penalty?

That's what I do already (along with the armour as DR, and a BDB score), in my heavily modified version of 3e/d20.

Except, classes mostly start with lighter armour proficiencies, and you have to use feats to gain the heavier types. As I also insist on training (and therefore time) being put into the acquisition of almost any feat (or skill, or class, as it so happens), that's not quite as quick and easy as it might sound at first.

Weapon Focus is split into an Attack Focus chain and a Defence Focus chain, to better go with all of that.

No complaints, so far.